Verizon Wireless Samsung Droid Charge Review

The Verizon Wireless Samsung Droid Charge, the 2nd Verizon 4G LTE phone to hit us. For starters it has a 4.3inch Super AMOLED Plus Display. This makes for an insane screen quality. It is a great for viewing anything, because of this screen. It is a phone that can go head to head with any other phone, and can most of the time come out a winner. At the end we will have a photo gallery. Now, let’s start the full review on the Verizon Wireless Samsung Droid Charge.

Hardware

The Samsung Droid Charge has some great hardware. At its thinnest point the phone is .46-inches thin. However at the bottom it swells out a little bit, this adds some thickness. However the Samsung Droid Charge is thinner than the HTC Thunderbolt. The Samsung Droid Charge is 5.04oz, this compares to the HTC Thunderbolt‘s 6.24oz. The Droid Charge is considerably lighter, this is because the build of it is somewhat plasticy. The phone is great for holding in your hand, this is because of the glossy and smooth back it is. The swell at the bottom is where the speaker is located, you can see the grile at the top of it. If you’re using the phone in speaker phone you can hear the person loud and clear. The speaker on the Droid Charge is insane, Music listening is also awesome on it. The normal call quality on the phone is also very good, you can hear the person on the other end very well. When you hold the phone and are using it, you will see there are mostly actual buttons on the phone. On the left side of the phone you will find your “Volume Rocker” and your “Mini USB Port”. On the right side of the phone you have your “Power/Sleep Button” and your “Mini HDMI Port”. On the top of the phone you have your “Headphone Jack”. Now on the bottom of the screen you have your 4 normal Android Buttons, those are your “Settings”, “Home”, “Back”, and “Search”. These are actually press buttons, not touch buttons. When you touch them they will go in a little. This is a nice feature about the phone. However the brightness of the buttons could be a little better.

Display/Screen

The Samsung Droid Charge has a 4.3inch Super AMOLED Plus Display. This allows you to view anything on your phone, in amazing ways. The contrast of the display is amazing. The resolution is 800 x 480. You can view it from any angle with same great view. Some phones have issues when you viewing the screen in the sun, the Samsung Droid Charge does not have this issue. The default is brightness setting on the phone is “Auto Brightness”. You can brighten it up a lot more by shutting auto brightness off, and dragging the slider all the way to the end. The wallpapers that come on the phone look great when using them. Overall the Samsung Droid Charge’s 4.3inch Super AMOLED Plus Display makes it great to use the phone.

Network Performance And Performance

The Samsung Droid Charge is not a dual-core phone but, it does have a 1GHz Hummingbird. So, while the phone will not be lighting fast; It still moves pretty quickly. Overall the performance of the phone is great. It is very quick when you are flipping through photos, or playing a game. The phone is a fast phone though, don’t get us wrong there. Now the Samsung Droid Charge is running on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Network. This 4G Network is amazingly fast. This is their 2nd phone running on their 4G Network. The speed tests are amazingly fast that we got. We used “SPEEDTEST.NET” for our Speed-Test’s which can be seen below.

1-Download 21.56Mbps, Upload 3.57Mbps, Ping 133ms

2-Download 18.86Mbps, Upload 3.61Mbps, Ping 129ms

3-Download 19.48Mbps, Upload 4.39Mbps, Ping 133ms

4- Download 12.10Mbps, Upload 2.33 Mbps, Ping 127ms

5- Download 13.73Mbps, Upload 1.71Mbps, Ping 127ms

6- Download 17.44Mbps, Upload 3.38Mbps, Ping 160ms

7- Download 20.72Mbps, Upload 4.19Mbps, Ping 152ms

8- Download 18.81Mbps, Upload 3.37Mbps, Ping 138ms

9- Download 20.84Mbps, Upload 3.75Mbps, Ping 124ms

10- Download 17.88Mbps, Upload 4.96Mbps, Ping 145ms

The Speed-Tests went through the roof, our highest download was 21.56Mbps and our Highest Upload was 4.96Mbps. This is lighting fast speeds. The best part is the 4G Mobile Hot-Spot can be shared with up to 10 other devices. We tested out that also and the speeds were fast, almost faster than, if not the same speed as our Verizon FIOS. The overall 4G LTE Network Speed on the Samsung Droid Charge is Awesome! The speed for Geo-Loaction Services on the Samsung Droid Charge is good, if you’re in an area that’s not really blocked. If you are in an area that’s a little blocked it might take a little longer to find you. Overall though Network Performance and the Performance of the Samsung Droid Charge is lighting fast!

Battery Life

As you know the HTC Thunderbolt‘s Battery Life was not good. Thankfully Samsung Fixed This completely. This proves that 4G phones can have good power. The Samsung Droid Charge can last a whole day, and still leave you time at the end. The battery inside the Samsung Droid Charge is a 1,600mAh battery. It lasted 24 hours (coming off a full charge), of picture-taking, video recording, WiFi/4G LTE using, and of course using apps. We consider this to be a normal day for a phone user, and if you use less or a little more it should be fine for you also. Hopefully the other brands can learn from the Battery Life of the Samsung Droid Charge; A phone that will last you more than a day.

Software

The Samsung Droid Charge comes with Android 2.2 Froyo installed; No Gingerbread yet. However Samsung did add some customizations to the phone that will keep it looking new. One cool feature is that lock screen has you finishing off a puzzle, by putting the final piece in to unlock the phone. The phone has 7 home screens, this should be enough for most people. The middle one is set to the home screen at first but, of course you can change it. It also many wall papers to choose from including 4 live wallpapers. You can also download more from the Android Market Place. Samsung has a some custom widgets pre-installed, they are nice to have but, nothing that mind-blowing. Those are “Daily Briefing” and “Dual Clock”. Dual Clock lets you see multiple different times. Another nice one is “Task Manager”, this allows you to close out of many apps at once, so it does not clog up your memory or space. The phone itself comes with a 32GB Mini SD Card, so you can store all of your stuff. However the phone comes pre-loaded with 3 pages full of apps and demos. Some of these cannot be removed. While it does not completely fill up your space, it just clutter’s it up a little. Overall the software on the Samsung Droid Charge is very nice and hopefully a Gingerbread update is coming soon.

Camera

The Camera on the Samsung Droid Charge is an 8 mega-pixel camera and an LED Flash. This is found on the back coming out of a little hole. There is also a camera on the front for video-calling and taking self-portrait. You can also record in 720pHD quality video with the phone. It provides some great quality images even when the lighting conditions are not the best. The LED Flash comes in handy when you are taking photo’s or shooting videos in the dark. Below this will be a video on our full “Samsung Droid Charge Camera Test”. It has test-photos and video camera test in it.

Bottom Line

The Verizon Wireless Samsung Droid Charge is an Amazing phone. While it may not be as fast as some of the other phones out there it get’s the job done. As you know the HTC Thunderbolt‘s battery was horrible, since this is Verizon’s only other 4G LTE Phone the Droid Charge had to fix this, we are happy to say that they did. The Battery in the Samsung Droid Charge is amazing it can last a whole day on a full charge when using it like a normal user would. All of this and the other great features make it a great phone. The price is the main set back, the Samsung Droid Charge will cost you $300 with a 2-year contract. Without contract it will cost you $599. The Samsung Droid Charge is Verizon’s most expensive smart-phone on the market. It is $50 more than the HTC Thunderbolt‘s. When you take the Battery and the Super AMOLED Plus Display into account, we think that it is definitely worth the extra $50. You Can Get Your Verizon Wireless Samsung Droid Charge Here! We would like to thank Verizon for providing us with a copy of the Samsung Droid Charge.

Jacob Krol is the founder, CEO, and editor in chief of NJTechReviews. He created the site in 2010 and most recently gave it a big redesign in 2014. Jacob is a sophomore at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. He has a big love for all things tech, he's a huge Springsteen fan, and he is also a native New Jerseyan.